The head of the EPA, Scott Pruitt, announced in Tennessee that the “War On Coal” was over. This during his announcement that the EPA was with drawing the Clean Power Plan proposed by the Obama Administration. What a joke this administration is. They accuse the former head of the EPA, Gina McCarthy , of picking winners and losers. Well guess what? They have already been picked. Coal lost.

Dallas Morning News Editorial

If there were any remaining doubts, the age of coal is over and the era of natural gas and renewables is officially here.

Luminant’s decision last week to shut its Monticello Power Plant near Mount Pleasant, one of Texas’ largest and dirtiest coal-fired electricity plants, is a prime example of this shift. The plant’s pending closure in January is a win for clean air and the result of the new economics of energy that renders coal-fired power plants like the Monticello facility cost-prohibitive relics.

We’re pleased that Luminant took this step after a year-long review of its operations. A decade ago, this editorial board helped lead the charge against the former TXU Corp.’s plan to build about a dozen coal-fired power plants in the state.

Consumers should come out ahead long term, utility says

Xcel Energy on Tuesday continued its shift away from coal, announcing an agreement to retire two of its three coal-burning units at the Comanche Generating Station in Pueblo while adding substantially more wind, solar and natural gas generation.

Xcel Energy will request competitive bids before the end of the year for 1,000 megawatts of additional wind, 700 megawatts of solar and 700 megawatts of natural gas power generation under its “Colorado Energy Plan.”

The state’s largest utility also said it will retire 660 megawatts of coal-generated power from Comanche Unit 1, built in 1973, and Comanche Unit 2, built in 1975. It will continue to operate the newer and cleaner coal-fired Unit 3, which came online in 2010 and has a capacity of 750 megawatts.

“It is really about the economics,” David Eves, president for Xcel Energy in Colorado, said of the retirements, which will take place before the end of 2022 and 2025. “From the company’s perspective, this plan is a response to our customers”

I must say that the general public is slanted against comedians. First, they think comedy is easy. It is not. It is very hard and mentally challenging. Second, they assume that acomedian could never be a good politician. I think Al Franken proves them wrong on both counts. I think he is an excellent comedian and a politician. About the environment he is spot on.

Al Franken’s devastating strategy for taking on Trump’s team of climate science deniers

Knowledge of climate science plus mastery of storytelling is a rare combination.

Sen. Al Franken (D-MN) has emerged as one of Congress’ most devastating questioners of the myriad climate science deniers who fill President Donald Trump’s cabinet.

And it’s largely because the comedian turned Senator combines two abilities rarely seen together?—?actual knowledge of climate science and genuine communications chops. Franken knows how to tell a good story, and as the best science communicators will tell you, the best messaging requires storytelling.

Just last week Franken dismantled Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke in one hearing, and Energy Secretary Rick Perry in another. And by dismantled, I mean his doggedness drove Zinke to spout nonsense answers that a top climatologist called “stupid and ignorant,” while it drove Perry to simply lose his cool?—?a take-down that has since gone viral.

I have always said that the solution to coal and natural gas was to retrain those workers for green technologies and move them on. Here is a perfect example of a culture that controls its resources and could do just that. But they don’t get it. Wake up Navajos!

Competition from inexpensive natural gas generators means electricity from NGS is already more expensive than wholesale power prices, the utilities said in a release, a trend that’s not expected to reverse in coming years. The decision is the second major coal shuttering announcement in less than a month.

The deal announced this week aims to maintain employment at the plant for almost three years, while also preserving revenues for the Navajo and the Hopi tribes. It also allows the Navajo Nation or others to continue operating the plant beyond 2019, though the current group of owners will not be involved.

It is true. He killed more people than Son of Sam and the Zodiac Killer and he got a year in jail. Why? Because he is a rich white and the death resulted from “mine safety violations”. So, you know, he never had a “direct hand” in their deaths. What a joke. He claims he lives in Las Vegas now, so I hope he wonders off in the desert and suffers a horrible death.

US mine blast: Ex-coal CEO Blankenship at end of prison term

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Former Massey Energy CEO Don Blankenship is finishing up a one-year federal prison sentence arising from the deadliest U.S. mine explosion in four decades.

According to the U.S. Bureau of Prisons website, Blankenship was set to be released Wednesday from a halfway house in Phoenix, Arizona. He must serve one year of supervised release.

“I’m glad he had time to reflect on the pain he caused,” former U.S. Attorney Booth Goodwin, whose office in Charleston prosecuted the case, said in a text message to The Associated Press ahead of Blankenship’s release. “I hope he used it wisely and will come out of prison ready to make amends.”

It wasn’t immediately clear where Blankenship will serve his supervised release. After his indictment, federal prosecutors indicated Blankenship owned homes in several states, and Blankenship said he lived in Las Vegas. A spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office in Charleston referred questions to the federal Bureau of Prisons.

A bureau spokesman and Blankenship’s attorney, William Taylor, didn’t return requests for comment

What I wanted to do today was something positive and warm fuzzy today. BUT Dolt 45 (Donald “he’s not my president” Trump) started signing Executive Orders willy nilly on Monday Boosting Coal, Supporting finding coal on Public Lands, Ordering the review of regulations about Methane production in oil and natural gas production, and last but not least challenging the Clean Power Plan. This man is insane. On the same day that China signals their commitment to renewables, we go the opposite direction. I mean it is so 1950. What is he going to do next? Order us all to smoke cigarettes?

Long Legal Battles Ahead Over Trump’s Climate Order

Environmental groups and progressive states are vowing to battle President Trump in court over his push to repeal federal climate protections, and experts are warning that the battles ahead will be slow and protracted.

An executive order on energy regulations signed by Trump on Tuesday takes direct aim at President Obama’s landmark climate rule, the Clean Power Plan, which would limit greenhouse gas pollution from power plants beginning in 2022.

“It’s a more cautious and well thought-out executive order than the ones we’ve seen from Trump so far,” said Michael Wara, an energy and environmental expert at Stanford Law School.

Trump’s order doesn’t eliminate the power plant rules, instead directing the Environmental Protection Agency to review them and suspend or rescind or propose changes to any that “burden” energy production from coal and other fossil fuels. It requires similar reviews of other energy industry rules.

Let me be clear here, the transition to clean energy sources will be painful because it is unplanned. Consider this: What if the Federal Government had a plan to move away from fossil fuels with clear benchmarks for the shift and training programs to move workers into that market. Well, plants would be closed on a schedule that everyone knows in advance, and there would be no pain. Only growth and prosperity. The way we are going about it now, Nuclear Power gets classified as “green”, plants are shuttered and workers are thrown out of their jobs. Brilliant.

Two Ohio coal-fired plants to close, deepening industry decline

Electricity company Dayton Power & Light said on Monday it would shut down two coal-fired power plants in southern Ohio next year for economic reasons, a setback for the ailing coal industry but a victory for environmental activists.

Republican President Donald Trump promised in his election campaign to restore U.S. coal jobs that he said had been destroyed by environmental regulations put into effect by his Democratic predecessor, Barack Obama.

Dayton Power & Light, a subsidiary of The AES Corporation, said in an emailed statement that it planned to close the J.M. Stuart and Killen plants by June 2018 because they would not be “economically viable beyond mid-2018.”

Coal demand has flagged in recent years due to competition from cheap and plentiful natural gas.

Yes, I warned anybody who would listen, that Pres. Trump would finish off this planet and 5 days into he is guaranteeing that some of the dirtiest energy on the planet will be burnt (haha burned). Tar sands for God’s sake. What about leave it in the ground. Nah he wants to toss it up in the air. I am not saying I like McKibben, I do not. I mean on tactics. I think his analysis is right on.

On Pipelines, Donald Trump Looks Backward

By BILL McKIBBENJAN. 25, 2017

IF you’re searching for a lens to understand just how President Trump sees the world, his executive orders on Tuesday reviving the Keystone XL and expediting the Dakota Access pipelines provide a sharply focused glimpse. In a word, he looks backward at all times. We’re beginning to get a better sense of what he means by “again” in “Make America Great Again.”

On questions of jobs and industry, he looks back at least to the 1950s. If something is big and made of steel, then it’s great. Like some Soviet Realist painter, Mr. Trump seems to have an image stuck in his head of brawny men building a nation. Those are real jobs, and all the other innovation in the economy doesn’t amount to much.

In fact (a phrase that suddenly seems politically charged) that’s not how economies work any more: If something is big and steel, it’s probably going to be run by robots. If the Keystone XL Pipeline is ever completed, for instance, it will employ about 35 full-time workers, relying for its operation on a vast network of sensors, drones and the like. The number of workers in our labor-intensive solar industry alone now surpasses those employed extracting coal, gas and oil combined

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Just imagine what he can do in 1,400 days. Go there and read. More next week.

Bill would penalize utilities for wind-generated electricity for Wyoming customers

A bill proposed by six state lawmakers would charge utilities a penalty if they use wind or solar energy to provide Wyoming consumers with electricity.

If Senate File 71 were law, there would be six permissible resources for generating electricity for Wyomingites, including natural gas and coal. Wind and solar are not on the list, except for individual use.

Utilities would have a year to reach the first compliance milestone of the bill, in which each company would have to get 95 percent of its Wyoming-sold energy from the approved resources.

The following year, 2019, companies must reach 100 percent compliance.

Oh my god. Is this my worse nightmare or what? A committed driller traveling the world for American Interests. What is the future of renewable energy, conservation and the sane use of scarce resources. I am sure he will encourage people to LEAVE their resources in the ground.

Mr. Tillerson, facing questions about Exxon Mobil’s history with climate science, admitted to at least a measure of strategic obfuscation during his testimony.

Senator Tim Kaine, Democrat of Virginia, said that despite Mr. Tillerson’s view on climate change, Exxon continued to provide funding to groups that obscure the scientific consensus. He asked Mr. Tillerson to clarify what Exxon Mobil knew about climate change despite its public claims through the years.

“Senator, since I’m no longer with Exxon Mobil, I’m in no position to speak on their behalf,” Mr. Tillerson said.

Mr. Kaine reminded Mr. Tillerson that he was asking about Mr. Tillerson’s own experience, which included more than four decades at Exxon. “Do you lack the knowledge to answer my question, or do you refuse to answer my question?” Mr. Kaine asked.